Spreadsheets - who cares?
=========================

I do use spreadsheet applications sometimes. At work I use these things
to manage  some (quite simple)  tables. At home  I have been  using for
even simpler things.

Anyway, some people  use spreadsheet for things  like structural design
so I  decided to try  something similar, too.  I still think  that such
things can  be done in the  GNU Octave/Matlab or even  the BASIC easily
but I understand  that there are places where having  computations in a
simple grid can be more practical.

But what  spreadsheet application I  should use? At  home I use  or the
LibreOffice Calc (very rarely) or the SC spreadsheet (much more often).
Why? Because the SC is enough for me in most of cases and it can run in
a text terminal. So I can  store spreadsheets on the S.D.F., fr example
and access  them from any place  where the SSH client  is available. By
the way, did  out know that even  the Windows 10 have  a OpenSSH client
build-in?

The SC runs only on UNIX systems,  anyway (a DOS port exists and it can
be probably compiled  for the Windows). But I want  to use spreadsheets
on  other machines:  on  my Z88,  on  the  PSION Series  3  (or on  the
Workabout) and on my  PSION MC400 and the MC600, too.  It would be nice
if these  spreadsheets would be available  on HP 200LX (or  even 95LX),
too. What now?

Well, some PSIONs (MC400, Series 3,  Workabout MX) can open Lotus 1-2-3
(*.wk1, *.wks)  files to some  extend. The HP  LX machines can  do open
them,  too (actually,  the  95LX  was designed  to  run  a Lotus  1-2-3
compatible spreadsheet application). The Z88 can only open its very own
PipeDream files.

Fortunately, a DOS version of the Z88's PipeDream office app exists and
is is available [1]. It can do not  only its ofw format but it also has
a Lotux  and CSV exports.  The Lotus files  are directly readable  on a
PSION (I  only have tried the  Series 3a so far).  And, the LibreOffice
Calc can  still import these  Lotus files,  too. The PipeDream  for DOS
runs perfectly in the DOSbox. Great!


But I do want to use these files on my other computers. The PSION MC600
is a DOS-based laptop (unlike the  MC400 which uses an early version of
the PSION SIBO16 operating system of the PSION Series 3 machines) and I
run the SC here. All my SGIs  (and Linux machines) run the SC, too. And
at the S.D.F. there is only the SC.  So I definitely need to be able to
use these files with the SC.

There is no direct way to convert the files. However, the PipeDream
can write CSV files with formulae. Such file can be converted for the
SC with use of its "psc" preprocessor:

----------
cat file.pd |psc -s A1 -d , >file.sc
----------

Note the "-s A1" parameter tells the  "psc" that it has to start in the
cell A1. Otherwise  it will start at A0 position  and all references in
formulae will be incorrect.

Unfortunately, this  is not  enough. The  "psc" recognises  formulae as
text strings.  Fortunately, the SC  file format is quite  readable. The
string line looks like:

----------
rightstring A3 = "B1*2"
----------

To change it to formulae it is enough to replace the "rightstring" with
the "let" statement and to remove " symbols. So it should like this:

----------
let A2 = B1*2
----------

Also, if there will be any functions  then it would be necessary to add
the "@" symbol (sin -> @sin) to make them work in SC. But then the file
works.

It can  be also beneficial  to change format of  columns but it  can be
done interactively  in the SC  program. At  the moment I'm  doing these
changes by  hand but  it should  be possible  to write  a shell/sed/awk
script for this type of conversion.

Anyway, it seems to be possible to made simple spreadsheets with actual
computations with the  PipeDream and then use them on  almost all of my
computers (well, except the 8-bit ones and Soviet ones...).


References:

[1] http://www.rakewell.com/pc/pc_z.shtml